Posted
by
pudge
on Monday October 14, 2002 @01:49PM
from the huh-huh-she-said-switching dept.

Twirlip of the Mists writes "There's a new page on Microsoft's web site that tells the first-person story of an unnamed 'freelance writer' who made the switch from the Mac to Windows XP. The author of the page -- who never identifies herself, and who could very easily be fictional or a composite sketch -- says 'Windows XP gives me more choices and flexibility.' How, you ask? Why, through Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and modern operating-system features like separate accounts for each user and easy access to the Internet, of course. Maybe somebody should email Microsoft and let them know that the Mac has had all of these things for years now ... nah. It'd just embarrass them. Anyway, it's an entertaining read that's good for a laugh."Update: 10/14 21:12 GMT by P: Apparently, Microsoft has taken the page down, but Google has it.

While those are indeed reasons to switch, they aren't quite compelling.

Freedom from DRM.So far, there is no DRM in Mac OS, and untill there is, that isn't a reason to switch.

Freedom to use the OS however you want to. I want to use my OS to get my daily work done. There isn't much beyond that that the OS has to do. This isn't really a clear argument, can you be more specific?

Freedom to tweak and change, even at code-level.I rarely have the desire to do this. Most programs work perfectly fine for me, and for those that dont, I get an alternative program. Even still, this argument is only compelling for a minority of computer users, I believe the original poster's intent was compelling reasons for other people to switch.

Freedom to install the OS on any machine you want to without asking "Mother May I?"Not quite. I can install it on any machine I want to, assuming that the machine is compatable with the OS hardware support. The main issue of course being that there are still seperate distros of Linux (PPC, x86, SPARC). When will we see a distro with all the nessesary code in one package, and a universal install?

Freedom from bullshit licenses and other nightmares.I'll give you that one. But again, the argument could still be made that for most intents and purposes, Apple provides the same freedom to it's users.

Freedom from the vast majority of viruses and exploits.Seems to me that that's a better argument to switch to mac than to linux.

Like I said, they're all very good reasons, but none of them are compelling to most users.

You might want to read the article. It doesn't seem likely that it's a real story in any sense of the word ("real" or "story"). Massive chunks of it were obviously written by professional marketers, and much of the last few paragraphs appear to be the work of MS support personnel.

Advertisements may be obvious, but they can still have a kind of life to them. Judging from the responses (both positive and negative), the Apple "Switch" campaign seems to be pretty lively.

Even a cursory reading of the MS article shows that while they've downplayed the obviousness of the advertisement (and not very well, after all), they've also failed to imbue it with any sort of liveliness. It reads like a second-rate brochure for life insurance policies.

The AP already picked up this story [sfgate.com], and tracked down the marketing company hired to create this fake ad. The woman, Valerie G. Mallinson of Shoreline, Wash works for a public relations firm, Wes Rataushk & Associates Inc. Microsoft hired Rataushk to produce fake testimonials when their own research turned up no usable customers. Yahoo peoplefinder lists: Steve and Valerie Mallinson, (206) 367-1953, 2203 N 106th St, Seattle, WA 98133, if you want to call and ask her about the ad in question.

At 5foot3 and 200 lbs, I'm sure Valerie is not the woman in the stock photo.

I'm not saying that MS products are better than Apple products--just that the advertising is MUCH more intelligent.

I'll agree the Apple ads are kind of dumb, they have no substance, but look at what MS had up:

More Software Flexibility

AppleWorks (previously called ClarisWorks) pales in comparison to Microsoft Office XP. There's no equivalent for the versatility of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint®. Toolbars and menus customize themselves to the way I work. I wouldn't know how to function without the Track Changes and Comments features of Word. I adore the Office Clipboard, which copies multiple elements from one file and pastes them into another.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 does more for me than Netscape Navigator ever did, and I am a surfing addict. Searches are faster; the History feature makes it easier to find that site from last week; and I can name and organize my Favorites any way I want.

They didn't mention that both MS Office and Internet Explorer are available for the Mac, and in fact IE is the only browser that comes preinstalled. Also almost every review of Office v.X said it was better than the Windows version. Same is true of IE for Mac.

I wont even get into that Mozilla is every bit as fast as IE.;)

This "switch ad" was just bogus. I guess that's why they pulled it! I'd wager someone at MS wrote the story and the photo of the woman was is just a stock photo. This is the kind of thing they pulled sending letters to newspapers and congressmen!

She also wrote:

" I am a freelance writer; I demand the best in mobile computing."

Can't get much better than a PowerBook G4 if you ask me! Besides the fact that most best selling writers use Apple laptops.

MS ads are not more intelligent, they are less fluffy, but also less factual.

And Sara, we know OS X is better than XP! It does show more copying on MS' part... got to get that X in the name!:P

Ouch. I have had several similar experiences, but fortunately no permanent filesystem damage (I run ext3 and find it to be reliable).

X is the Achille's heel of Linux.

I hear talk of other windowing architectures being developed (the guy who wrote Enlightenment is rumoured to be working on one), but have not seen them make it into any mainstream distributions yet.

I can't tell you how many times my machine appears to have crashed, because of X. I've had to reset, because X refused to accept any keyboard or mouse input (even Ctrl-Alt-Backspace), and I didn't have a second machine handy to telnet/ssh in and kill the X process (a very good strategy for dealing with an X lockup, if you have access to a second machine nearby).

X is as bloated and buggy as anything Microsoft puts out.

People have been whining about X since at least 1989 [rahul.net]! It is the one thing holding Linux back on the desktop. KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, every GUI depends on X. We really need to fix this!

The real problem is that all of the commonly used video drivers aren't as stable as they should be. (It doesn't help that most of the latest and greatest video hardware is flaky as well.) Replacing X doesn't fix the driver problems, and so isn't going to prevent lockups.

Now, what would be nice would be a way to have a 'panic button' that restarts X or kills it and sets the video mode to a known state. The fact that a broken video driver can lock up keyboard input as well is rather annoying.

Oh, and I don't buy that X is "the one thing holding Linux back on the desktop." You're honestly trying to argue that people who use Windows every day don't switch solely because the windowing system crashes occasionally? I can come up with a long list of reasons not to switch, but X wouldn't make the top 25 in my book. If anything, X is a plus rather than a minus, because it can be used over a network.

I think that the silliest part of all of this is that they actually believe that they're going to convert Macintosh users to Windows.

Now don't get me wrong, I have never owed a Macintosh and, until a few years ago, used nothing but Microsoft operating systems.

The thing is that Apple users have heard all the anti-Apple flack for years and know where their loyalties lie. The average Windows user doesn't know that anything else exists. It's easy to convert or at least influence a Windows user who hasn't developed any real loyalties.

But Mac users, on the other hand, are hardcore about their loyalties and know what their OS is and why they like it. They have used PCs in public labs, at school, libraries, whatever for years and will be able to see through the the Microsoft FUD as they have been doing for years.

I suspect that the marketing brass at Apple will be (or currently are) having a good hearty laugh over all of this.

The thing is that Apple users have heard all the anti-Apple flack for years and know where their loyalties lie. The average Windows user doesn't know that anything else exists.

Hear, hear. They can have some pretty absolute opinions about other OS's though, without ever having used them, or even seen them.

I've been a pretty avid alternativist for the last two decades. I used to be (still am in some ways) an Amiga nut. I dived into BeOS when it was new. I was an early adopter of Linux, and have had one or two BSD machines.

My father (without actually bothering to look at any of the machines for 10s) would always say "Give it up! There is no alternative! Windows has won! No-one will ever use anything else!"

Well, the last time Pops came over, I showed him my new flat-panel iMac. I just did some basic demoing, like showing him the zooming dock at the bottom, window shadows, speach recognition, and of course the fish in the background [serenescreen.com] (yes, any OpenGL screen saver can be run as a desktop background).

Response? We'll, he looked a bit shocked. Then he looked a bit flabbergasted. The he looked stunned for a while. Then he said "I want that in my computer".

At which point I explained "You can't have that in your computer. It's nigh impossible in Windows. But if you got a Mac..."

The thing is that Apple users have heard all the anti-Apple flack for years and know where their loyalties lie. The average Windows user doesn't know that anything else exists. It's easy to convert or at least influence a Windows user who hasn't developed any real loyalties.

You just missed the entire point of this article. Microsoft knows they're not going to convince hardcore Apple users to switch. This copy of Apple's switch campaing, is for MS users who might be tempted to switch. If a user is considering switching to Apple, then sees that some other people are switching from Apple to MS, the user might very well decide to stay right where he is. The theory of course, is that a user who is easily persuaded to try Apple could be easily persuaded not to try Apple; get it?

Gee, I wonder if Caroline Woodham, the model in the picture, knows she switched to XP or that she is now a Microsoft editor.

Whether she does or not, it looks like Microsoft just pulled the page (or it got slashdotted). It seems they can no longer find it.

I guess Caroline Woodham (or her make believe twin) just got "fired". Or maybe her PC self destructed. Anyway, it has got to be one of the shortest Microsoft careers ever.

I feel sorry for the model in the picture, though. She signed a release that people could use the photo in general artwork, not that someone can make up stories about her personally. The price of a 72 dpi picture (assuming someone didn't just take it off their web site and cut off the top part with the light table and the company name) just doesn't cover something like that.

As for a company that feels it needs to hire fictional clip art switchers/editors, that's pretty sad. At least Apple uses (and hopefully pays) real people.

My favorite switchers tale is still the 1993 "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II". Man, when he switches, he switches big time. Just look at all them Macs.;)

but 'her' name is on there - look at the dialoig box - she's really 'Don Funk' (donfu@microsoft.com).... and as has been pointed out below Don chose his photo from some publically available stock photos so that he could show a little more of his feminine side

Linux gives me more choices and flexibility.' How, you ask? Why, through OpenOffice, Mozilla, and modern operating-system features like separate accounts for each user and easy access to the Internet, of course.

With Windows, I had to go through... like... three... or like... four menus to find the "automatically configure my network" button. With Linux, it's like... I just need to add 'iface eth0 inet dhcp' in/etc/network/interfaces and a couple of ifconfig commands later, I'm up and running... like, it's so easy!

This "person" is obviously an invention of Microsoft marketing... no name. (Apple made a great move to have everyone in their "switch" ads identify themselves at the end. Microsoft didn't even try.)

The added touches of this "person" being 5-foot-3 and her husband six feet, and the "Lexus we rented once," was predicted by Philip K. Dick in his short story
The Mold of Yancy [google.com].
If you've read it, go read the Microsoft ad with an eye toward the similarity. It's creepy.

Jesus H Christ. I'm not sure if this is a troll or an honest question, but does nobody read BoingBoing [boingboing.net] besides me? Mark Frauenfelder [apple.com], who was featured in the first run of ads (which are no longer available on Apple's web site) has been mainting BoingBoing with Cory Doctorow for quite a while now. I was reading his blog long before the switch ads started appearing. The cynicism of some people amazes me. Yes, the men and women featured in Apple's commercials are real people telling their real stories.

AppleWorks (previously called ClarisWorks) pales in comparison to Microsoft Office XP. There's no equivalent for the versatility of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint®. Toolbars and menus customize themselves to the way I work. I wouldn't know how to function without the Track Changes and Comments features of Word. I adore the Office Clipboard, which copies multiple elements from one file and pastes them into another.

I think the most interesting point isn't that someone switched, but that this is a MICROSOFT writer that was using a Macintosh for 8 years. They just got her to convert. "*Editor's Note: Now that we've successfully converted our writer to a Windows PC, we will be working on getting her to try a Pocket PC. Stay tuned for more developments!"I think the better story would be "Bill forces last Mac user to switch!"

I have a question to the guy who submitted this story: do you honestly believe that the people featured in Apple's Switch campaign are real? I mean, I know Tony Hawk is a real person. Ellen Feiss could be real, too. But when they speak about how cool macs are and how uncool PCs are, they do so because they got money from Apple. Their confessions are just about as real as those of the "fictional" and "composite" person from Microsoft.

The difference is that Apple paid someone to lie on TV and Microsoft put their story in the mouth of an imaginary person. Now who's more honest?

I'm the guy who submitted the story, and I'll be happy to answer your question. Apple did something that most people aren't aware of. They actively solicited, on their web site, write-in testimonials about switching from Windows to Mac OS X for almost a year before running the first "Switchers" ad. Also, Apple paid for the Switchers airfare and accommodations when they shot their TV spots, but they themselves received no money at all.

Finally, the TV spots are just a small part of the Switchers campaign. Check out apple.com/switch/stories [apple.com] sometime. You'll find dozens of emailed testimonials from real people identified only by their initials.

The answer to your question is yes. I believe the people featured in Apple's Switchers campaign are real. While I concede that it's possible that the whole thing campaign a big hoax, I think it would have been a lot harder for Apple to fabricate it than it would have been to simply find a couple dozen people who were willing to talk about their Macs on camera. The preponderance of evidence points to the conclusion that Apple is just letting people tell their own stories, while the preponderance of evidence is that Microsoft, in this case, isn't.

"The author of the page -- who never identifies herself, and who could very easily be fictional or a composite sketch"

IIRC, Microsoft targeted such an ad campaign at Mac people a couple years ago, albeit to get them to use IE & Office for Mac, not switch altogether. The campaign featured what were purported to be testimonials from satisfied customers, but M$ tipped its hand when it launched the ads too quickly, and had "customers" discussing their experience with the latest versions of M$ wares a few days before said versions actually shipped.

I wrote her, expressed my sympathies at her unfortunate un-feminine name, and congratulated her on the apparent success of her modeling career.
I hope she writes back...I'd like to enhance her user experience even more...

And what about these people?http://www.microsoft.com/insider/printhelp/ [microsoft.com]
They're all smiling 'cause their #!@%ing XP printer driver finally installed.
(sorry, couldn't find this in the stock photo archive. I'm sure it's there though)

Here dad is helping figure out what "fatal error in krnl32.dll means". Say, isn't that a mac they're using?

Ha! It is indeed. It looks like an LC. The keyboard is an Apple Extended Keyboard. That's too funny... You'd think with a budget like Microsoft's, they could at least avoid promoting the competition in their ads...

I'm sorry, but it will near impossible for MS to get back the marketshare/mindshare they've lost from Apple or Linux.

Why? Because those people had a reason to "switch". It's like saying they learned that Soilent Green is people, then have the people that make it say "Come back to Soilent Green! Really! New flavors, fat free!". It just won't work. They know there are alternatives to Windows, to the BSOD, to the annoying Clippy, to the oodles and oodles of unexplained problems and security issues.

The users who came from Windows and now are on the Mac are like the people that swam across the ocean from Cuba, I don't think they're going back anytime soon.

What Microsoft should do is improve it's software NOW so that there won't be any incentive to switch. Besides, the portion of users who switched or even using Apple products are very marginal anyways.

``Anyway, it's an entertaining read that's good for a laugh.''You think this is fun? This is FUD. Lies. Crap. Misinformation. Cheating. BAD BAD BAD.

I mean, advertising is one thing. Advertising the things you stole from others is quite another. XP is more multiuser than OS X? You'll make me laugh. Office XP has more features then Claris? Yes, it's called bloat and decreases usability. Besides, office runs on Mac, too.

MicroSoft Internet Exploiter faster does more for her than Netscape ever did? Yeah, popping up ads, loading up the borked MSN ActiveX control, loading Word documents inline so that people get the idea that they are a replacement for webpages. Searches go faster? Maybe if you are looking for the crap that M$ search comes up with...give me Google any day! And it's not like Netscape doesn't have history, either.

Connection Wizard - yes an old pal of mine. It's always the first program I removed. Not that removing is easy, you have to actually delete the directory it's in, or iexplore.exe will run it for you. WTF? I asked for _Internet Explorer_ not _Connection Wizard_. Why I get rid of it? Because setting up access to any provider I've used is easier without it, and because sometimes I just want to satrt a browser, without having to click away a bunch ow wizards first.

`` I started with Outlook Express for e-mail, because it's included with Windows XP.'' Here we have the fatal flaw that got us all those lovely email virii. I understand that the vulnerabilities have *finally* been fixed in the XP version, but God, did that take a long time.

``I copied hundreds of Web Favorites from the Mac onto a Zip disk, then into the Favorites folder on the PC. Internet Explorer has an Import/Export Wizard that you can use to import Netscape bookmarks, but I found it faster to do it this way.''ROFL. Copied them to a Zip disk? Hilarious. It's called Linux. It can mount _your_ filesystem. You don't even have to buy a new computer to run it! And the OS is Free, as is most of the software you will want to use!

``Both Outlook Express and Outlook will import contacts and messages from other programs.''Yes, and I trust that M$ have taken care that they are then saved in a proprietary format so that others can't pull the same trick on them...

``Later, I had to uninstall and reinstall Outlook''Yes, welcome to Windows...

``The key to getting hardware to work with your computer is to have the correct drivers''Indeed. And M$ have been so good as to make the XP driver interface incompatible with previous versions of Windows, so that if you install it on older hardware, you may not be able to get drivers for your components. A problem that Macs don't seem to have, but I might be rong.

``If not, go to the Web site of the company that makes the peripheral you want to attach to find the most current drivers.''And download a 10+ MB file from their site that loads a lot of visual violence, advertisements, bells and whistles, and then tells me that I downloaded the wrong driver, even though the name of my device is almost exactly like the one the driver is for? Or worse, not being able to find out where to go for the driver, because all Windows has to say about it is ``PCI Multimedia Device''? Where is lspci -vv when you need it??

Pfff...it's been a while since I've been able to blow off so much steam...

Wow, that's quite an innovation. I wonder how they thought of that. I get a little tired of having to use this "root" account that came with my Linux package. It's kind of a stupid name and I wish I could change it to my name. Maybe someday Linux will have separate accounts for each user.

I can't believe you guys are taking this thing at face value. Are you nuts? Do you really think that MS has a fertile source of new money inside the Mac crowd? I've seen figures (can't attest to their reliability) that an Apple customer pays more money to MS than the average x86 customer. I'm sure this figure isn't far off. I mean, MS Office is on just about every Mac, it's much harder to find pirated copies, and it costs more to buy at the store.

This whole thing is a charade that Apple is a willing participant of. The whole point of the "switch" campaigns is to give the appearance of competition in an industry that effectively has none. Microsoft must be thrilled, because a totally leashed, client company (Apple) is making it look like competition is nipping at Microsoft's heels. Last week they tried the "Windows and Mac users can get along" campaign, which was spooky but not surprising, given the antitrust battles going on now.

Remember that the allegation made against MS is that they don't compete fairly with their real competiton. There are boxes of evidence to support this. On the other hand, there is the supposed couterexample of Apple: A high profile, low danger company that gives MS absolutely nothing to worry about. MS is in fact crying: "see, we are running a fair race! Look at Apple! We're not bullying them at all! We're really, really competing with them using--fair methods like advertising. And oooh, we're soooo scared that they would eat into our market share, so we find it imperative to run ads which prevent this! Our position on the desktop is soooo vulnerable!"

Well, I hoped that at least the slashdot crowd could see through this. I mean, we know that once Microsoft aputates both of your legs, they are perfectly willing to run a fair race against you. Witness that Internet Explorer is now finally uninstallable. However, suddently the Windows Media Player isn't. That's because RealMedia still (sort of) has its legs. Once they're off, the uninstallability problem will suddently disappear. My point is that Apple lies somewhere between Netscape and OS2 in terms of being a threat to Microsoft. However, there is much good PR to be gained by making it appear that the two companies are locked in fierce competition. So MS are milking it. The only surprise is that nobody is calling them on it!

The article looks as though it was written by somebody who has never, ever, touched a MAC.

Frankly, I'd like to see a MAC formatted ZIP disk work instantly on a PC. I'd also like to see why the writer didn't compare Microsoft Office to Microsdoft Office v.X. I'll tell you why, v.X is in my opinion the best Office implementation at the moment. Also, why not compare IE 6 PC to IE on the MAC?

I find it surprising that Microsoft feels the need to use this style of marketing campaign. Not for the fact that is blatently copying Apple's Switch campaign, my surprise for MS copying other people's work ran out years ago.

What surprises me is that it has been found that market leaders need not identify themselves in their campaigns -- it is implicit that most consumers will choose said market-leader. For example: Campbell's doesn't need a campaign that says "Buy Campbell's" It just needs to say "Buy Soup" and most consumers will choose their soup. This marketing push of their OS by name in a popular style, at least to me, says that Microsoft is really getting worried over any change in market-share. Enough so to nitpick over a few percentage points and retaliate with a campaign like this. (Tell me, at the height of the pre-bundled, defacto-standard Windows Empire -- How often did you see their OS advertised?)

(by the by, how do tactics like this by Microsoft strain their relationship with Apple? I would think Jobs, being an artist at heart, would hate a blatent copy like this.)

The woman in the picture looks like she's in the middle of a commercial for a yeast-infection or genital-herpes remedy. "With Windows, I don't have to be afraid to tell people what operating system I use. And that's a weight off my shoulders, so I can spend more time enjoying life."

"It's about more and better." Wow. That's substantial and profound. I thought she said she was a "professional writer."

Most of the page is devoted to explaining how to use wizards. If you need to explain how to use your wizards, your need to fire your usability team.

She finishes her pitch by talking about installing drivers and finding more programs to convert her Mac documents every day: "I discover more treats daily. For example, Word Converters are helping me transfer old document files, Microsoft Works files, and even AppleWorks files. It will be an ongoing process, but I'm thrilled so far." In other words, she still hasn't been able to convert all her documents, and she expects it to be a long, ongoing process... and this is why Windows is "better?"

Personally, I don't think Microsoft wrote this. I think someone from Saturday Night Live broke into the MS server room and uploaded this.

OMFG, that was hilarious! The underlying message was "Microsoft makes switching from bad ol' expensive Macintosh to their happy, puppy friendly technologically superior Windows XP platform so easy, even a dumb girl like me can do it. Tee-hee."

How low can you get? Does anyone really BELIEVE this story? I sure hope not.

But at the end of the article, there are forms in PDF and Word (natch) where you can send in YOUR experiences with Windows. Come on Slashdotters, fill them out and send them in! PDF [microsoft.com] and Word [microsoft.com]

Here is the text of the document. It gets better...

Show Off Your Skills

Are you a whiz at using a Microsoft product at home or in the office? Are you the one everyone comes to when they need to know how to do something? If so, we'd love to see what you can do.

A whiz? ha ahaha I think they mean wiz. Oh brother.

We're collecting ideas for articles on the Microsoft Insider Web site. Some of your work or submissions may be included in a gallery on the site, featured in press releases, or developed into how-to articles.

This just in: Microsoft invents user-friendly HOWTO documents.

Note: We will not feature any of your work without first receiving your permission.

And having you sign away the rights to any experience you may have, or have had in the past to the sole ownership of Microsoft.

To participate, please send us:
Your first and last name
Name of your company or organization (if applicable)
Brief description of your company or organization, including industry and size
Brief description of which Microsoft product you use and how you use it
Personal contact information, including address, phone number and e-mail address
Samples of your work--either hard copies of your marketing materials or a Web site address where we can view your work. Please be sure to include any user names or passwords that might be needed.

WTF???

You can submit your sample(s) one of two ways:
1. For online materials, send an e-mail message with the subject line Microsoft Publisher Customer Stories to insider@microsoft.com. (Note: Please do not send any attachments over 1 megabyte in size.)

Or with any malicious VBscripts attached

2. For printed materials, send hard copies to:
Microsoft Insider Customer Stories
Microsoft Corporation
9931 Willows Road
Redmond, WA 98052
Microsoft will not share the information you provide with third parties without your permission except where necessary to complete the services or transactions you have requested, or as required by law.

Importing Messages. I upgraded to Outlook when I installed Office XP. I chose Yes when Outlook asked whether I wanted to import messages from Outlook Express. Later, I had to uninstall and reinstall Outlook, but all was not lost.

Hmmm. In the way she writes her excitement on using this piece of crap, it looks she is another outlooker that says yes, Yes, YES to every Klez juicy flavour and every LOVE YOU letter... Probably the new, fresh and exciting BugBears will make her dreams sweet... I imagine the ride of joy she'll have when some Barby/Trojan will salute her in one more of these exciting [censured] M$ gifts...

OKay, I admit it! I've been a Linux user for years! You know, one ofthose communists who thinks that everything should be free and forgetsto use deoderant. Recently, I was reading a totally unbiasedtechnical article in a magazine that informed me that the competitionjust cannot stand up to Microsoft's (r) Windows (r) XP operatingsystem.

Let me tell you how lost I have been all these years, using free,open-source software! What a waste of my life! As soon as I readabout all the great features, I threw some clothes on (shoes too!) andran out to my nearest CompUSA to buy a copy of Microsoft (r) Windows(r) XP Professional for about 400$US. I got home, ripped theshrink-wrap off, read over the draconian EULA (I don't mind giving upsome freedoms, Windows (r) is just too great), and immediately got toinstalling.

After installation, I was unable to activate my copy of Microsoft (r)Windows (r) XP. Sure, there was a little hic-up here, but after all,you sometimes have to make sacrifices for quality! After about amonth of not being able to use my computer, customer support finallyjust said I could use a "back-door" activation code. How wonderfulthat Microsoft are helping me out at their own peril!

It only took me about three months to get me up and running! GirlScout's honor!

More Crashes, Less Work

Microsoft (r) Windows (r) XP lets me relax more through my busy workday. With continuous crashes and reboots, I can spend more timesipping coffee than doing my job! Microsoft (r) Windows (r) XP alsoensures that the work I do manage to get done is of the highestpossible quality. I demand that I be empowered to rewrite a documentI lost four times so I can be certain that it is very refined.

More Software Flexibility

Previously, I had access to hundreds of thousands of free softwareproducts. But they were free, and we all know that anything that'sfree is worth nothing! Now I can go out and spend anywhere from 50$USto 5000$US dollars on a box with a CD-ROM disc in it! With a costlike that, it ought to be some really good software!

Final Comments

If it wasn't for Microsoft (r) Windows (r) XP, I wouldn't bathe, usedeoderant, or wear clothes all day. I would just sit around andstink, rotting in my house, getting fat! Thanks to my switch toWindows (r), I'm healthy and have a great life! Thanks Microsoft (r)!

I think the Apple switch campaign was the best advertising they could have gotten. Every time I see one of those smug, smarmy bastards talking about why they switched, it just makes me cling to my cvrappy Windows box more, out of spite. It's like those "The Truth" anti-smoking ads, that make you want to start going at a pack a day, just to shut the little punks up.

It's newsworthy-- in the Slashdot sense of "news," of course-- because it's funny. Microsoft's response to the Switchers campaign is so lame and so fake that it's funny.

Nobody has their "panties in a bunch." We're just kicking back on a Monday morning and enjoying a good joke. The fact that Microsoft made the joke-- inadvertently, at that-- just makes it that much more enjoyable.

This strategy has existed for decades and I find it not funny nor worth getting your panties in a bunch about.

I think you're missing the point. It's not the strategy that's amusing, it's the fact that it's such a poor effort. Microsoft doesn't offer one reason to use XP that doesn't also exist in Mac OS X. Microsoft Office? They have that for OS X. Multi-user? Yeah, OS X has that. Etc, etc.

it's like an ad from Iraq's tourism industry trying to lure beach-goers away from Florida:

Sun? We have that. Sand? We have lots of that too!

This is almost as silly as Microsoft hosting the "we have the way out" anti-unix site on freebsd. but i digress...

Microsoft doesn't offer one reason to use XP that doesn't also exist in Mac OS X. Microsoft Office?

From the botom of the article:

Editor's Note: Now that we've successfully converted our writer to a Windows PC, we will be working on getting her to try a Pocket PC. Stay tuned for more developments!

I'm pretty sure that what's going on here is that Microsoft found a freelance writer to write glowingly about XP in exchange for free hardwaree and OS. Similar to the old tactic of giving aluminum siding to a family for free so the neighbors can see it in action. 10 bucks says she's on the MS payroll. Also, in response to the posters above who remarked that she is so much better looking than the women in the Mac ads: I'll bet the picture shown is not the writer of the article.

think you're missing the point. It's not the strategy that's amusing, it's the fact that it's such a poor effort. Microsoft doesn't offer one reason to use XP that doesn't also exist in Mac OS X. Microsoft Office? They have that for OS X. Multi-user? Yeah, OS X has that. Etc, etc.

But then again, the Apple switch ads don't offer a single reason to use a Mac that WinXP doesn't have. You can burn cds and dvds, which you can do on WinXP. You can make movies, whihc you can do on WinXP. Neither sides has any really good arguements, because people wouldn't respond to the good arguements (things like the cariety of software on Windows vs Mac or the better usage of the power of a Mac vs WinXP). Neither side really will convince someone to switch, it will just hopefully make them check out both and make a decision after looking at both of them.

But then again, the Apple switch ads don't offer a single reason to use a Mac that WinXP doesn't have.

And you've completely missed the exact same thing that Microsoft missed about the Switch campaign.

The point isn't to show these people talking about all the things they can do with their macintoshes. The point is to show how happy that all these people are about all these things that they can do with their macintoshes. The point is demonstrate to all those disgruntled windows users in the Great Unwashed, using real people, that computing can actually be a pleasurable experience.

Apple doesn't want you to pay attention to what any of those people in the Switch ads are saying. What they want you to pay attention to is the quiet, joyful glow in Ellen Feiss' eyes as she talks about how happy she is that she doesn't have to worry anymore about the computer going all, like, BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP and deleting, like, half her paper. (And it was a really *good* paper.)

They want people to see these Switch ads and go, "Wow. These people all seem to actually enjoy using their computers. I don't enjoy using my computer at all. Maybe if I bought an apple, I'd enjoy using my computer too."

(Of course, usually the ACTUAL effect is that people see that quiet glow and they go "Wow. Maybe if I started smoking pot, I'd be happy too". Or they start stalking Ellen Fiess. But the point is the intent of the whole thing.)

This is why the switchy-PR thing on MS's website is such a joke. [S]he's describing how "great" her experience with WinXP has been, but the experience that she describes sounds about as fun as a trip to the DMV in which the line was short and you managed to get in and out and get everything you needed done without particularly any hassle. Meanwhile, any emotion that there is in the article feels about as real as Anne Coulter.

I don't have any formal training in marketing besides having watched maybe 10000 hours of TV:) In many categories the market leader does not mention the competition. For instance, you don't see commercials where MacDonalds even mentions Burger King or their other competitors. Nike and Budweiser do the same thing. Up until now Microsoft has only compared their newest OS to previous versions of Windows.

If I was an Apple user I would be encouraged by this bit of marketing. It implies that Microsoft is concerned about their image compared with Apple and is willing to violate this empirical rule.

Being a Marketing Director, I can tell you that there is nothing surprising (or news worthy) in this story.
Its simple. Competitor explains why there product is better than yours. You can either
A.) Do nothing
B.) Fight Back

See, the great part is that Microsoft tried doing A and B *together*! Now that's novelty.

It's newsworthy in the sense that it'd be if Chevy's all-new campaign against Ford were to have the MD of GM chatting to the camera about how his granddad, Thomas Edison, and "whoever the President was at the time", would go to Yellowstone Park in their Suburbans.

I work in marketing too, and I think it is newsworthy because it shows that Apple's campaign is a success.

Since one can't generally can't make a correlation between an advertising campaign and increased sales (too much of a lag and too many factors), there are a few milestones for promotions that indicate success:

1. A coined term being adopted by the industry. In this case, "Switcher" is being used in all sorts of contexts, albeit in articles talking about Apple. But if someone in the computer industry uses the term "Switcher", most people in the know will think "Apple". I guarantee you someone in Intel's marketing department grins whenever an analyst talks soberly about "Moore's Law".

3. The competition is forced to respond to you. Pepsi constantly mentions Coke, but Coke never mentions Pepsi. But Pepsi's marketing department would love to see that happen. If anything, it's free advertising, because your product is being mentioned without you having to pay for it.

4. Finally, some sort of parody exists. I've seen a few on the web, but Apple would hit pay dirt if Saturday Night Live or someone painfully mainstream would do a parody. That would show that Apple's Switchers campaign has become a small zeitgeist, like the Mastercard "Priceless" ads.

The Microsoft ad was so bad because it was so easily dismissed. All the talking points could be dismissed just as easily as they are brought up. Make no mistake, someone in Apple's promotions department saw that pathetic Microsoft ad and grinned from ear to ear.

AppleWorks (previously called ClarisWorks) pales in comparison to Microsoft Office XP. There's no equivalent for the versatility of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint®. Toolbars and menus customize themselves to the way I work. I wouldn't know how to function without the Track Changes and Comments features of Word. I adore the Office Clipboard, which copies multiple elements from one file and pastes them into another.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 does more for me than Netscape Navigator ever did, and I am a surfing addict. Searches are faster; the History feature makes it easier to find that site from last week; and I can name and organize my Favorites any way I want.

(Just incase M$ deletes the site)

I find it more amusing that despite AppleWorks being a little less feature-rich than Office XP, it is about $300 cheaper (as in $0 for Apple to $300 for Office).

And of course there's the fact that M$ sells Office X for Mac, and Internet Explorer is the default browser for OS X. I can guarantee that the entire M$ advertising team that proofed that page isn't even aware of this fact.

The point? I dunno about everyone else, but every day I'm getting closer and closer to wanting a Mac as my main PC (and by PC I mean PC, not Server;))

"Linux isn't living up to any of the claims that MS or Apple are making."

LOL!!

I can see the Linux ads now:

"So.. like, I bought this Firewire Video camera, and I like shot some footage of my dog and stuff... and like when I plugged the camera into my Linux laptop.. uh.. well it didn't work. So first I went to find a firewire driver. And uh.. well I couldn't find one of those, but I find a kernel update that had firewire support. So I downloaded and recompiled and typed this in and that in and that kind of worked. Then.. then I had to find a free-app that'd do DV-capture and editing. After a few days of posting news groups, I eventually did find one that sort of worked. Of course, I had to fix a bug or two for it to be useful. But hey! It's free!! Isn't that the great thing about Open Source? Fixes happen like really really fast. Anyway, so I sort of got that running... and uh now I can get video from my camera to my laptop. It only took a few weeks! So like there's no way I'm going back to Windows now because I put all this damn effort into this and finally got it working.